The gleeful geeks at iFixit and ChipWorks have torn apart Apple's latest flagship iPhone, the 5s, and inside they found a lot of glue and a few surprises – including the manufacturer of the A7 processor and the source of the sensor-wrangling M7 chip that was much touted at the rollout of Apple's latest smartphones last week. …

Re: Samsung processor

As far as I see it, the Apple-Samsung patent spat is free advertising for Samsung. People who want Apple will buy Apple, everyone else now has Samsung front-of-mind as the first Android option.

Most people I know who rock the Apple kit bought it because their friends did, the rest are devs/IT who need it for testing and the vast majority use an Android phone in their personal lives.

Phones are now a commodity product, even most apps are bullshit and the most useful non-productivity ones could be cut down to run as HTML5 web apps. The most likely moneymaker in the future is the content sales and distribution, everything else is quickly becoming run of the mill.

Re: Samsung processor

>>the Apple-Samsung patent spat is free advertising for Samsung.<<

Yeah, that's probably why Apple are being aggressive patent trolls, to give Samsung free advertising. That, and in an attempt to legally injunct sales of Samsung phone in the USA...but probably more to give them 'free' (as in expensive international lawyer time) advertising, sure.

Re: Samsung processor

Out here in the forgotton wastelands beyond watford, the company hands out iPhones to the dirty mishapen wretches it employs. The apple phones are so marvelous that over three quarters of us have subsequently bought android devices from our own meagre wages. On monday I will take a glue gun to my samsung's battery so that it can once again be as technically advanced as the latest iPhone.

Re: Samsung processor

As someone who went from a Blackberry (HATED), to Droid (Semi-Hated) to an iPhone 4S (actually really like), I have to disagree with your anti-fanboi comments. Like most iPhone people, I find the integration and interoperability a huge plus. The "just works" is what a lot of Apple fans care about. The 4S is the first phone that actually works well for me without having to cycle power, remove batteries to reset, deal with laggy processors, etc.

Re: Samsung processor

at the core of your Apple, is a Samsung heart - that's the only revenge Fandroids need.

To be fair, you haven't used Windows Phone 8 which is rather good.

This "just works" is BS. I get sick of hearing it - tell it to the Applerati who moan at me that their Mac crashed.

If you've stared at the swirly beachball while Mountian Lion's having a shit-fit, you'll know what I mean. Windows 7 AND Windows 8 "just work" as well as anything spewed out from Cupertino's satanic sphincter. So does most Linux.

Some people like Apple, some people don't. Some people can be objective and critical of EVERYONE'S eco system with no loyalty to any brand and without following quasi religious dogma. I use THEM ALL and on a good day, love them all and on a bad day hate them all....EQUALLY.

Re: Samsung processor

iPhone just works? integration?

Sure IF all your kit is Apple, but as soon as you step outside the apple ecosystem you find things called standards... which means I can just as easily stream via DLNA to my Samsung TV as I can to my parents Panasonic, etc...

Standards mean my android phone needs no software on Windows or Linux to transfer files, yet on mac I do and then I still fight to get it to work...

Re: Samsung processor

A/C said: "You obviously know b@gger all about real app development HTML5 are so clunky and slow even on new kit plus you can't use a local database or have access to all the phones hardware using HTML5."

Hybrid apps can use a local DB and much of the devices' hardware. Also, done correctly, they can run perfectly well on all but the oldest of devices. I think you're the one who knows bugger all about 'real app development', in this day and age at least. Also, you could do with brushing up on your grammar by the looks of it.

Re: Samsung processor

>What rubbish only and idiot would build their app with HTML5 it runs so slowly compared to a native app.

Howdy, Idiot Number 1 here. Funny, the ones I made zip and pop like an iPhone commercial after the edited sequences. Guess I should have listened to the 'experts' out there. Instead, I wrote my own JavaScript and cut down reaction times below 10% of what the average library/jQuery user sees.

Simply rewriting loops using while (counter--) {//loop here} is a massive performance increase. I can do 30000+ string comparisons in around 7ms whereas it was well over 100ms using an optimized for loop, and that is on old kit (note timing is only accurate +/- 15ms in JS apparently, so take that for what it is worth).

Likewise, using SVG for graphics and graphing along with CSS sprites when well done give a very rich visual response that doesn't kill the speed (assuming you know how to use these correctly). This is a benefit of not having to support older IE (something I accepted begrudgingly after using the D3 library - d3js.org)

>you can't use a local database

Someone please inform the AC of localStorage and AppCache.

>or have access to all the phones hardware using HTML5

Very true, but I can still geolocate, use audio, camera, video, and access device orientation...

The above notwithstanding, I certainly agree that serious apps for working or social BS will definitely benefit from being native, the same does not apply for smaller, more limited-in-scope apps that are likely to be made in house for a specific task. It really depends on what is needed, something many devs cannot comprehend as they start copying what they saw someone do rather than doing what they need to do for that specific project (lets ignore Java coders trying to write JavaScript - it is often worse than what 'designers' get up to with the jQuery).

Furthermore, one can make hybrid apps that are mostly HTML5, but run inside a native app which is used only for the parts that absolutely cannot be otherwise accessed. Once again, for smaller specific apps this could be an excellent development shortcut while still having much of the code reusable for desktop/laptop use.

About devices, here in the Pacific Northwest, it seems to be based on whether one is a woman, or a 'creative' type being extremely likely to be iPhone users and this seems to be pretty stable across most of Canada according to my telecom 'sources'. I never mentioned my friends, my observations are based the people I know who range from adolescents to the aged and span all but the most extremes of the economic spectrum and live in all manner abodes from country to downtown condo. So demographic, yes, location, not so much.

Re: Samsung processor

@ notdavidbailey

Nice, terse (and vice versa).

Beyond that, clever use of arrays and objects combined with localStorage and AppCache cover all but the most extreme use cases for storage, organization, and access of/to data. I find it odd that the people who have trouble using SQL as a server DB are the same ones who try to replicate it inside the browser/client environment.

Re: Samsung processor

Of course that's not what Apple *intended* Cliff, but that's what they *did*

When the ban on the first Galaxy Tab was lifted in Australia everyone knew about the tablet before they could sell it - far far better than Samsung could have done themselves.

Just like the court action against Microsoft all those years ago for "stealing Apple's interface". Coverage of the court action basically equated the interface of Windows with Mac in the eyes of the public, even if there are significant differences. People looked at 2 computers, saw one was half the price and in their minds the interface must be so similar the more expensive one sued the cheaper one.

But shhh don't tell Apple, its far too much fun watching them hand over mind share in court rooms while they think they are getting a win :-)

Re: Chet Mannly

Re: Samsung processor

Bad luck, where I work the first lot of smart phones were all androids (almost all Samsungs of various sorts), but the sucked sooo bad that the next updates everyone had a choice, iPhone or Droid, and we went 100% iPhone. So the latest update, with samples to test, 98% iPhone again. Maybe you should work somewhere with better discrimination ?

Re: you can't use a local database

Re: Samsung processor

Badder luck. Where I work the first lot of smart phones were all iPHones but with no cut and paste or mms the sucked soooooooooo bad that the next updates everyone had a choice, iPHone or droid and we went 110% android. So the latest update, with samples to test, 130% android again. Maybe you should just post badly constructed nonsense you make up?

Re: Samsung processor

Yeah, that's probably why Apple are being aggressive patent trolls, to give Samsung free advertising. That, and in an attempt to legally injunct sales of Samsung phone in the USA...but probably more to give them 'free' (as in expensive international lawyer time) advertising, sure.

@Ashton Black

Not at all Old Lad

A collection of ill-thought out comments which basically say nothing is nothing more than a trollfest. I am perfectly happy for others to hold views which oppose those I hold - and I respect those views.

I find it hard to summon up much respect for those who leave juvenile "Yar boo sucks-Apple are all stinkypoos" comments.

My first comment "Another trollfest from El Reg." is perfectly valid and it is not their holding different views which I find tiresome, but the immaturity of the third-form manner in which they're expressed.

Why is it that any article on an iPhone immediately draws in comments from people whose only contribution is "I prefer Samsung"? Seriously, this crap has been going on since the Spectrum and Commodore 64. If other people want to spend their cash on stuff that doesn't appeal to you does it really invalidate your own purchasing decisions?